Picture Perfect Cooking

Do you ever cut recipes out of magazines with the intent on making it “soon” and then never get around to it?  Well, I do…a lot.  I finally took a few minutes and went through my recipe file to do a little purging.  I threw away several of them because I knew I would never make them, but I found a few keepers in the bunch.  Back in 2005, (I told you these were old) I had copied a recipe out of a Southern Living magazine that caught my eye then.  When I found it again recently, it still looked good to me so I gave it a try.  This would make a great family dinner with a salad on the side. That is how I fixed it, and we had plenty for leftovers the next night. In fact, it was really too big for the two of us but I think it would be easy to scale down.

2 lbs lean ground beef

1/2 medium onion, chopped (The original recipe called for 2 whole onions chopped, but that was way too much for me.)

1/2 cup chopped sweet peppers

3 tsp Italian seasoning, divided

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 jar tomato and basil pasta sauce (I used Paul Newman’s 24 oz marinara.)

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1 can refrigerated pizza crust

1 tbsp olive oil

Cook the ground beef, onion, peppers, and 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning in a large skillet over medium-high heat, stirring until beef is no longer pink. 

Add the flour, stirring until blended.  Stir in the pasta sauce.  Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.

Spoon the meat mixture into a lightly greased 13×9” baking dish.  Sprinkle evenly with the mozzarella cheese. 

Unroll the pizza crust and place it on top of the cheese.  Tuck the edges into the baking dish if necessary.  Brush the crust with olive oil and sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of Italian seasoning on top.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

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It is Ingredient Spotlight day at Eat At Home Cooks!  This week the focus is on dried or canned beans. Check it out here!

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I love finding new recipes to try and cooking blogs seem to have an unending supply of ideas.  This recipe came from bakingbites.com.  If you have not had the chance to read this blog, I highly recommend it!  It is full of wonderful recipes and beautiful, mouth-watering photos of them.  These blondies have their roots in the classic snickerdoodle cookies, but they are quicker to make.  Here is a little warning to the wise though: this recipe only makes enough for an 8×8” baking dish so if you are feeding a crowd, you might want to stick with the classic cookie recipe posted here:

https://pictureperfectcooking.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/snickerdoodles/

If you want a small treat, you can’t go wrong with these sweet, buttery, cinnamon-flavored bars.  These did dry out a little in a couple of days, so I suggest eating them on the day they are baked or maybe one day later at the most.

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 large egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp granulated sugar mixed with 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 8×8” baking pan.  I just used the butter wrapper.  In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light.  Beat in salt, egg, and vanilla extract until well combined.  Add in flour and stir until no streaks of dry ingredients remain.

Pour dough (it will be thick) into the baking dish and smooth it into an even layer.  Sprinkle dough evenly with cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Bake for about 30 minutes until the bars are set and the edges are just very lightly browned.  Cool in the pan before slicing.

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It is Ingredient Spotlight day at Eat At Home Cooks!  This week the focus is on apples or applesauce.  Check it out here!

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This recipe is closely related to the chocolate Bundt cake recipe that I wrote about back in April of 2009 here.

Today’s cake is not quite as rich as the older one, but it is just as good.  The great thing about this recipe is that it can be adapted to your liking.  You can choose your own cake mix flavor and use a different pudding mix flavor as well.  The sky is the limit! Well, maybe the limit is the flavors at the grocery store, but you get my meaning.  Enjoy! 

I am also linking this recipe on one of my favorite blogs, Eat At Home.  She is having an ingredient spotlight day dedicated to chocolate chips.

1 box yellow cake mix

1 small box instant chocolate pudding

8 oz. sour cream

1 cup oil

1/4 cup water

4 eggs

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees; grease and flour a Bundt pan.  Combine the cake and pudding mixes, along with the sour cream, oil and water.

Add the eggs one at a time, stirring until combined.  Mix in the vanilla and chips.  Pour into the bundt pan and bake for 55-60 minutes or until knife inserted in the cake comes out clean.  Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a cake plate.  Cool completely and slice.

See all of those little dark spots.  They are gooey chocolate chips.  Yum!

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